England suffered the heartbreak of a 4th penalty shootout defeat in 14 years in the quarter final against Portugal. England took the lead on three minutes with Michael Owen scoring his first goal of the tournament. England sat back and tried to defend the lead but could not hold on and Portugal pulled level on 83 minutes through Postiga.

England then had a perfectly good goal from Sol Campbell disallowed on 89 minutes after a shocking decision from the referee.

In extra time Portugal took the lead through Rui Costa on 110 minutes and England fought back with an equaliser through Frank Lampard on 115 minutes and the onto the shootout. David Beckham and Darius Vassell were the unlucky players this time as Portugal ended up 6-5 winners on penalties.

"But life has to go on. It's a pity and I feel sad for the players and the fans, who have behaved extremely well. I thought we had a good chance to reach the final, unfortunately we go back to England tomorrow."

About the condition of the penalty spots, Eriksson added: "Twice before both games we played at this stadium we complained. I complained personally to the UEFA official responsible about the penalty spot and then yesterday for a second time we talked about it again to UEFA and they said they would replace some of the grass on it."

He also refused to criticise Urs Meier for ruling out a Sol Campbell header late on in normal time, saying: "The referee has decided and you cannot do anything about that."

Eriksson added: "To lose in this way is very hard. The spirit has been fantastic and I have no complaints about anything - the players and the atmosphere all the way have been fantastic."

Frank Lampard said: "The dressing room is devastated. Everyone is so quiet. To go out on penalties is the biggest kick in the teeth you can have in football. We have worked very hard to get here and we felt we could go all the way in this tournament. We don't want to go on holiday now. We wanted to stay here for the rest of the tournament and now we are not here. We seem unlucky in these situations - but how many times are you going to be unlucky."

Michael Owen said: "We trained on the pitch on Wednesday and a lot of players were losing their footing then. Some players like David, when they hit a dead ball, put quite a lot of weight on their standing foot. David is one of those and Rui Costa is the same. The ground seemed to move from underneath him as well when he missed his penalty. The lads are really upset and, forgetting the result, we have played really well in this tournament."